Published 5:30 am, Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Although he applauded the NBA portion of the China Games, with the Magic playing the Cleveland Cavaliers in Shanghai today and in Macau on Saturday, Yao said the players on the China national team should be with their China Basketball Association teams, preparing for the start of their season.

"To be honest, I think they should not play that game," Yao said Tuesday. "It's only one week before their season starts. And after five months of training camp, after 35 games on the road, they should not play any game besides the season. They are too tired. That's what I think, but they are going to play. Good luck."

Mixing and matching

The Rockets scrimmaged for the second consecutive day, with coach
Rick Adelman
saying he used the simulated games to evaluate players for the upcoming roster and rotation decisions as much as to work out the rough spots in the team's play.

He said he would not be dividing the players into teams to compete in games — as he has this week — if the roster were not so full, with 19 players practicing with fully or partially guaranteed contracts.

"We have the big court (in Toyota Center), so we decided to do two more scrimmages in game conditions," Adelman said. "They get a good run, but we also can stop and do things. We go up to the practice floor with 19 people, there's not a lot of room to do anything."

Heated practices

The Rockets have gone so long between games, competing instead against one another, they have begun to develop a rivalry between the team in white and team in black.

"We've got guys going at each other, a couple fights, couple arguments," Tracy McGrady said. "That was what I expected."

McGrady would not elaborate on whether fights became physical or remained verbal. But players said the games have been taken as seriously as real games.

"It gets very heated," Mike James said. "We're not playing out there. It's not a joke."